Maze prison escaper Brendan McFarlane has lost a legal challenge aimed at preventing his trial on charges connected with the 1983 kidnapping of supermarket boss Don Tidey.
However, he may appeal yesterday's High Court decision to the Supreme Court.
McFarlane (52), a father of three, of Jamaica Street, Belfast, was charged in January 1998 with falsely imprisoning Mr Tidey in 1983 and with possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life at Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, in November and December 1983.
His trial was due to go ahead in the non-jury Special Criminal Court last month after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier High Court decision prohibiting the trial on grounds of missing evidence.
After the Supreme Court ruling, McFarlane instituted fresh High Court proceedings seeking an order prohibiting the DPP from taking any further steps in the criminal proceedings.
He claimed court process delay had prejudiced his right to a fair trial. His trial was adjourned pending the outcome of his challenge.
In his reserved judgment yesterday Mr Justice John Quirke dismissed McFarlane's claim. The judge said McFarlane had failed to establish that culpable or blameworthy delay within the State's court process had affected or interfered with any constitutional or other right enjoyed by him.
Any increased levels of stress, anxiety and inconvenience which McFarlane complained of as a result of delay could not outweigh the community's very considerable interest in having offences of such gravity prosecuted to a conclusion, the judge said.
The Supreme Court had held that McFarlane's constitutional right to a trial with reasonable expedition had not been violated by any State delay in prosecuting him up to and including November 1st, 1999, the judge noted. It was of considerable significance that no evidence had been adduced by McFarlane suggesting that anything had occurred since 1999 that prejudiced his capacity to defend himself against the charges, the judge said.
Mr Tidey was kidnapped by an IRA gang in 1983 and rescued after 23 days in captivity.
A trainee garda, Gary Sheehan, and a member of the Defence Forces, Pte Patrick Kelly, were killed in a shoot-out with the gang when Mr Tidey was rescued.
McFarlane had been in prison at the Maze since 1975 for his part in the IRA bombing of a bar on the Shankill Road in which five people were killed.
He escaped in September 1983, was rearrested in Amsterdam in January 1986, extradited to Northern Ireland and released on parole from the Maze in 1997. He was arrested outside Dundalk in 1998 and later secured bail pending the outcome of the challenges to his prosecution.